I Abhor Cingular wireless/ Cell Advice needed (1 Viewer)

[Matt Butler]

I am now a victim (in my eyes) of the AT&T/ Cingular merger. My AT&T phone is slowly taking a dump so I went to the local AT&T store only to find it has turned into a Cingular store.

I decided to look around even though I left Cingular a few years ago right when they converted from Pac Bell wireless.
I figured Id give them a chance. I looked around and found a phone I like. That is untill I saw the rates.

Cingular's rate plans are shit compared to what I was/am getting from AT&T; the salesgirl also told me that they charge a $18 "upgrade fee"! I asked what that was only to hear it was an unwaiveable fee for buying and upgrading to a new phone. And she said there was no activation fee.

WTF!! Im giving you money for a phone plus paying monthly bills for minutes plus paying any sales taxes along the way, but you still want to tax me just for buying a new phone?! Ive never heard of this.

Im currently trying to bitch my way to the top of the food chain to get out of my contract cause I didnt sign up for Cingular; I signed up for AT&T and have renewed and upgraded with them for about 5 years now.

Rant over

Hows Sprint and/or the other companies?

Edit: I should add that my ceel is my primary phone and I pay about $50 a month for high minutes.

 

[Jason Charlton]

I've been with Verizon Wireless for about a year now and I have no complaints thus far.

I don't use my cell very much, so the individual plan with the fewest minutes (300, I think) worked perfect for me. You get unlimited nights and weekends (with free long distance), and 100 text messages for just under $40 per month. Recently, my fiancee and I combined our two plans. Instead of 300 minutes, we share 400 minutes(everything else is the same), plus it's always free when we call each other's cell. That comes to $70 per month.

The coverage is good - haven't had any problems in that department.

-Jason

 

[Jon_Gregory]

Well I was with Cingular back when they were Bellsouth Wireless and they were great back then. When they became Cingular the sales/service I got from sales people and customer service reps when down the drain. I finished my contract with them and went on the search. I have since been with Verizon for about 8 months now and do not have one complaint about them.

I have found with cell phone companies, that if you talk to some customers they will tell you great things about thier service provider and others will regret ever signing that contract. I think it is one of things that you have to experience for yourself and decide whether you like the cell company or not.

If they would just get rid of those stupid contracts, I think all of those bad customer service people will dissapear. They suck you in with all the promotions and then leave you high and dry. So much of their sales staff are trained at getting new customers instead of making the existing customers happy.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Funny, I left AT&T wireless, which pushed my patience beyond the breaking point, and went to Cingular because they had been absorbed by BellSouth. With my local service, long distance, DSL and cable all now on one bill I pay less than I did before for high speed and high minutes, have a great phone, fewer "dead" spots and problem areas (I couldn't make or receive calls in my section of my office building) and pay less than I did for the various services from different companies. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Philip_G]

Been with tmobil for a year, their rate plans aren't the cheapest, I guess neither is verizon.. but I've been happy.

 

[Carl Miller]

I've had problems with them all. Sprint had lots of dropped calls when I used them years ago. AT&T was awful with the billing and toward the end of my 2 year contract with them also with dropped calls. Now I'm using Cingular on a 1 year contract and the customer service sucks, but the actual calls are flawless..no drops, no dead zones.

My advice is to look for or negotiate one year contracts if at all possible....Either that or accept the idea that they all suck, which I think is probably true.

 

[Chris]

Things are changing though..

AT&T & Cingular now share one network, which should give them better coverage.

Soon, Sprint & Nextel will share a network, giving them a fair national footprint.

Verizon is the other "major" player.

These three have the largest national footprint now (or will after the merger) followed by options like AllTel, T-Mobile, etc. Some of those options vary by where you are at.

Find out what's good in your area; it changes.. if you're in most of Kansas, Verizon works out -really- well, so does AllTel, a 3rd tier provider, who has rural Kansas pretty well covered; AT&T is -terrible- around here (thus so is Cingular); Sprint is pretty good in the metro (hell, we are their national headquarters, it should be) but not so hot beyond that.

Then again, now that there has been a study linking cell phone usage to genetic damage:

http://www.reuters.co.uk/printerFrie...toryID=7141560

Who knows which one is better to irradiate your body and which creates the better mutated offspring

 

[Aurel Savin]

been with Verizon for over 5 years and they have been amazing ... nothing will make me switch.

if they can pull off phenomenal service in the cell hell that is NYC ... well ... they are your best bet.

that "can you hear me now?" commercial is the real deal.

 

[Henry Gale]

A recent survey showed Verizon to have the best customer service.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I have Verizon and my wife has Sprint -- we like having different carriers to maximize our coverage areas when traveling. Verizon's coverage is better in northern Michigan, which is very important to me.


That is definitely my experience with Sprint. I've had to battle with them a couple of times to get them to replace defective phones for my wife without a charge. It usually takes an escalation to a "supervisor" and a threat to cancel the service to get them to do anything.

I haven't had any customer service issues with Verizon yet, but I haven't needed to call them, either. One thing that does annoy me about Verizon is that I have to remember to update my phone manually to tell it about expanded cell tower coverage as Verizon expands its network -- I never had to do this with Sprint. I forgot before a trip this summer to northern Michigan and did not have "on network" coverage on Mackinac Island, which I should have. And the update must be done from your home network area, so I couldn't update the phone from the non-covered area.

 

[Philip_G]

oh, another idea, might try heading over to a big cell forum like howardforums.com and asking existing customers how the coverage is in your area, doesn't do me much good to tell you sprint is awesome in denver if it sucks where you are.

 

[Josh Simpson]

I'm hoping for this, because I have not been happy with AT&T coverage, even in Dallas/Fort Worth area.

 

[Shane Martin]

I've heard numerous nightmares about Cingular service and I know several folks who want to switch. I've heard their coverage is good though just don't talk to them..

I Personally have T Mobile and other than a phone that isn't the best, I'm happy.

I paid $49 for 2 phones, 450 minutes unlimited nights and weekends with unlimited mobile to mobile.

The others were just too expensive.

 

[Brian W. Ralston]

I just don't see it really. I have a friend who had Cingular in L.A. for many years and was very happy with his coverage. The day his phone started displaying Cing/ATT for his network...his coverage literally went to SH!T. Almost every call he makes is dropped at some point. It never rings in his house anymore (and he use to get a full signal in his house when it was just Cingular).

I use to be with AT&T as well and my service was like what he describes now. Once my contract was up, I had to leave, went to T-Mobile and love the service and the phone.

He is now trying to get out of his contract, but they are going to charge him something like $150. It is rediculous.

 

[Jake Gove]

I'm in the same boat - I have had AT&T for years, and now the merger has happened and I'm torn as to whether or not I should switch.

I HATE flip phones and love Nokia, so Cingular has a leg up on Verizon because Cingular has 2 decent Nokias. Verizon and T-Mobile would be companies I would consider switching to.

I tried going into a brick and mortar store and by calling the 800 number to get them to give me a good deal on the phone to prevent me from leaving. They would not budge on the price of the 2 Nokias I wanted. The main phone I want is 199 with a 50 rebate for new subscribers. I can get the same phone for 219 with a 150 rebate from Amazon.com (for new customers). I showed them this, hoping they could go somewhere in the middle, but no luck. I even said I could just drop my service with them and wait a week and be a new customer via Amazon.com. Still didn't convince them to give me a deal. I've been a loyal customer for over 5 years, and have spent a lot of money on my cell phone bills, yet they don't give a shit about keeping me.

I really want to keep my numbers, if I do switch to another carrier, how do you go about keeping the numbers?

 

[MarkHastings]

I've been with Verison for 12 years now. Well, they weren't always Verison...They used to be Bell Atlantic. The reason I went with them was because they were the ones who originally owned all of the towers, so they were the best - and still are.

No complaints at all (in the past 12 years) with Verizon.


p.s. and whenever you call 411, Darth Vader answers

 

[SarahG]

I curse Sprint at least once a month, but in the end, it's really not that bad of a deal. I like to talk a big talk, but I don't know that they are any worse than any of the other providers. I will say that they are fairly cheap, but when you have a problem, customer service isn't the greatest. I'm looking forward to trying to conserve some minutes now that I've bot my voip plan in place. I think that's going to end up saving me some money on both ends.